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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Word of the Week: Choices

We never go through a day without making a choice, in fact many choices, but I am not always thinking, "Okay, what choice am I going to make here?" This week, though, I thought a lot about the word itself and what it means to make good choices in many different capacities.

The first set of major choices came with thinking through registries and deciding on brand choices for some of the more major purchases for our son. Sometimes I wish I could take choices like this a little more lightly as I have spent SOOO much time researching and deciding already, and we're not done yet. But, I feel comfortable and confident with the fact that I am doing it not just for my peace of mind (because that's part of it, of course) but because I want to make the wisest choice for any big purchase, especially when it concerns our child. With all the options available for every type of product today, I feel it is important to be wise in choosing products.

That brings me to the next major choice on my mind this week: food. When it comes to our family's diet... well, we're not the most healthy. And though I could come up with many excuses as to why not, it really comes down to lack of knowledge on my part. Although I was much aware of this before, I am much more aware of it now as I have more choices to make when it comes to choosing food for Justin when I'm nannying during the week. When I cared for him this summer, I had some choices to make, but my choices were always supplemented by some baby food as well. Now he does not need to be eating such simple baby food all the time and so I need to make the best choice for him nutritionally. I know that learning this now will benefit us in the future as Josh and I seek to become healthier people, and of course, want to raise healthy children. I love the positive inspiration I have in this area as my family have become very healthy eaters and the family I nanny for are very healthy eaters as well.
An email from my brother at the beginning of last month said, " Our culture has inundated us with super-sized and fast-food meals and most kids today don't know the first thing about healthy eating. I know this probably sounds preachy, but my true hope is that you will all raise your kids differently and teach them, while leading by example, about nutritional eating and living a healthy and active lifestyle. Knowledge is power. Just like you can't expect to live a very good Christian lifestyle if you never read the Bible, you can't expect to live a healthy and nutritious lifestyle if you never spend any time learning about it." Exactly. So my current goal is to not be overwhelmed by gaining knowledge about healthy eating, but to make the wisest choice to work to gain knowledge slowly but surely. My hope: Eventually making wise choices for our health may come naturally!

More major choices on my mind this week? Yep. Two more. The first came with working together with Josh to formulate a lesson plan for his college course on 2 Cor. 5:16- 6:2. Basically he sought to teach about the dire importance of making the choice to have a sense of urgency in ministry. Of knowing that the choices we make each day in how we live, how we minister, have an affect on the people around us and we can be the difference between someone "seeing" Jesus and having a positive view of Christianity or not. A lot of times we choose to live as Christians, but not as a Christ-follower. The difference? Our active faith and the way we understand the urgency of letting those around us know about Christ. As Paul put it in this passage in 2 Corinthians, "Today is the day of salvation." Don't overlook the important choice of literally choosing to live for Christ each moment of each day.

The last choice brings me back to children. I am learning so much about making wise choices for our children and teaching them to make wise choices as I nanny for Kameron and Heather. This week they got me the book Parenting with Love and Logic to read, so that we can all be on the same page when it comes to caring for their 2 sons. I definitely desire to be on this same page, and am excited to learn more. Already from reading the beginning of the book and spending some time in prayer, I know that teaching children to make wise choices when they are young will prepare them for "real life" when they will encounter many opportunities to make choices for themselves. They'll encounter these situations no matter what, and training them to make wise choices is very important!

So. Having all these thoughts in my mind, I wanted to share. I just pray that these thoughts on choices will get you thinking about the choices you make as it has for me. We are praying that we make the wisest choices in every area of life, which definitely stems from being a person of wisdom, which of course comes from getting to know our Heavenly Father. Maybe that's what my mind is bringing this down to - being a person of wisdom in order to make wise choices comes from not just spending time researching to find the "best" answer based on peoples' research and experience, but spending time researching God's Word to become a person of Godly wisdom.